I see them on TV, I read
about them in Legal Updates, they are out there. Bad HR Departments. In the business world management mistakes are
abundant, but it is so much more disheartening to my profession when laws and
policies are broken by those assigned to uphold them. We know better, or at least we should.
HR Professionals walk a fine
line between serving the company and serving the employee. Fine line doesn’t even do it justice. It is a faint, barely visible, thin gray
line. We are advocates for our staff
members, within the bounds of the corporate policies and procedures and legal
protections. We should be advocates for
our staff, even if they don’t know they need us.
Following is a recent account
of a series of interactions with an HR Department that clearly didn’t have its
employees’ best interests at heart.
An employee for a Texas based
banking institution (one of the oldest and largest in the state) was fired and
the reason given was that it just wasn’t working out. The at-will doctrine says that that is an OK
reason for termination, but HR should have known better; perhaps asked a
question or two before letting the axe fall.
This employee had just passed
his one year anniversary with the company.
There had been multiple absences for illnesses throughout his time there.
But the illnesses and injuries were not
only real but quite obvious, including surgeries and casts, physical therapies
and doctor’s notes. It wasn’t a case of
a faker. HR should have known that this
employee was eligible for protection under FMLA. The termination happened after a four day
absence from work for an infection for which he had a doctor’s note. And on his last day they made him finish a
project before firing him at 4 o’clock.
So he did good work, the manager didn’t like the time away, regardless
of the reason.
After he was previously given
a written warning for absences he asked if there was a process or platform
through which to dispute the reasons for the write up, the HR Manager just
shrugged. To top it all off, the
information sent to him in his COBRA letter was unlawful. Dates were wrong, time frames given were
wrong. This HR Department was all kinds
of wrong!
Was this employee the type of
person we want on our staffs? His work
was really good, he was just frequently ill.
So yes, and no. Could have
accommodations been extended as long as the essential functions of the job are
done? Absolutely, it’s kind of the
law! Should HR have known that FMLA
protections were in order? Yes, again
with the law. Does the company have a
potential discrimination suit on their hands?
Oh yeah!!!!
Unlike line managers or other
department heads the relationship between HR staff and the termed employee
lives on. And sometimes on and on and
on. Health insurance, retirement accounts,
dates of employment, job descriptions, W-2’s, the list is long for reasons to
stay in contact. The relationship really
has to change to one of advocacy for that former employee. They don’t know what they don’t know about
ending employment with you and beginning it somewhere else.
So HR, on what side of the
thin line do you come down? Since it is
your job to protect the company from litigation, I have to say it should be
both. What is best for the
organization? What is best for the
employee? Just because the employee
didn’t ask for FMLA doesn’t mean he shouldn’t have gotten it. When you are about to terminate someone, a
thorough analysis of the situation should be conducted. Even a previous write up doesn’t protect
you. The situation may be quite
different, especially when there is a service milestone.
Aside from evaluating each
situation your HR staff really should have a better answer than a shrug! And a COBRA letter with inaccuracies is just
plain negligent. It doesn’t have to be
done in a hurry and it only has a few things that have to be changed for each
person. If you are the HR Manager that
deals with terminations you need to know your COBRA law and letters inside and
out. There is no excuse for getting that
wrong.
